Microsoft on Thursday released InternetExplorer 5.0, which it said
will makeWeb surfing more pleasurable and productive, and give
developers a platform for innovation. But one group of Web developers
was not cheering.

In TV Land, executives tremble before the power of the Nielsen
Media Research's audience ratings. Nielsen numbers dictate the life
and death of shows and determine where advertisers spend billions of
bucks.

The consumer privacy organization Truste has decided that
Microsoft's controversial Windows data-collection practices compromise
consumer trust but that they do not violate the company's license
agreement with Truste.

They were neither green investors, nor Internet newbies. But an
electrical engineer and a computer company executive told a Senate
hearing Monday they had each lost thousands of dollars to online
investment scam artists.

The company plans to roll out new home networking technology next
month, called AnyPoint, that will allow multiple computers within a
home to communicate using already installed phone wires, when used in
conjunction with Microsoft's
Windows operating system.

Domain name registration hopefuls are crying foul after Network
Solutions took over the InterNIC Web site just weeks before the
company is set to lose its government-appointed monopoly to register
the most lucrative form of Internet addresses.

"Dollars for megahertz" may sound like a game, but it's
the driving force behind the low-end PC market, according to Intel
Corp., which today upped the ante with a new 433MHz Celeron processor.
The Santa Clara, Calif., company's latest offering, which includes
128KB of integrated Level 2 cache, is priced at $169 per 1,000 in
Intel's plastic pin grid array packaging. That translates into several
OEMs offering sub-$1,000 desktops with the new chip.

Nintendo’s Game Boy has dominated the
handheld video game system market in the United States for so long
that it is only natural to assume that domination is worldwide. That’s
true, but perhaps not for long — several new competitors have
appeared on the Japanese market in recent weeks.

The successor to the monochrome Neo Geo Pocket (which has not been
released in the U.S.), Neo Geo Pocket Color’s 2.6-inch screen is
larger than the screen on Game Boy. It has a rotating “3D Lever”
directional button that is very similar to the directional pads on the
Analog Controller for the Sony PlayStation.

Responding to the crush of interest in its offer for a $299
computer, Microworkz said today it has started to take orders online,
but won't start shipping units "subject to supply and
demand" on April 19.

Microworkz
last week struggled to cope with getting information to consumers
about their offer for a $299 PC that comes with a year of free
Internet access.

A merger between two major cable companies today will give birth to
a new broadband powerhouse, executives from the two companies said.

Comcast, the
fourth largest U.S. cable provider, agreed today to acquire MediaOne
Group, the third biggest U.S. cable firm, in a $60 billion stock
deal that would create a broadband communications firm.

Today’s typical traveler is enrolled in more than seven
frequent-travel programs. To help these busy travelers save time and
maximize their travel benefits, the MSN™ Expedia™ travel service (http://expedia.msn.com/)
is announcing an agreement with MaxMiles Inc. to offer a free one-year
subscription to MileageMinerÔ , an online service that conveniently
consolidates and manages consumers’ frequent-travel programs in one
online location (connect-time charges may apply).

Microsoft Corp. announced a major court victory Friday with the
dismissal of a year 2000 (Y2K) lawsuit filed in federal court in
Illinois. The lawsuit, filed originally as a class action by plaintiff
Ruth Kaczmarek of Naperville, Ill., was dismissed with prejudice by
the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

In a strongly worded opinion, the court said, "As we near the
21st century, the media has focused on many potential Y2K problems.
This focus will inevitably lead to much litigation … , which the
courts will need to determine is meritful or meritless. Unfortunately
for the plaintiff, we find this lawsuit falls in the latter
category."

Macromedia has released a minor
update for its Dreamweaver Web authoring tool. Dreamweaver 2.01
corrects minor issues related to the JavaScript extensibility
mechanism, as well a time zone issue that may affect customers outside
the US. If you are working in the United States and are not writing or
using third-party data translators and property inspectors, you
probably do not need to download this patch.

Note that this patch will update copies of Dreamweaver 2.0 that you
have purchased either on CD or through electronic software download.
It will not update the 30-day trial version as registration is
required.

The Review Zone has posted an
article that puts the TNT2 up against the Voodoo 3. Here is a
snippet from the article:

The TNT2, at
first glance, looks like a souped-up TNT, using the same Twin Texel
32-bit graphics pipeline. However, with 32MB of SDRAM (no support
for SGRAM), a 300MHz RAMDAC (an improvement over the 250MHz RAMDAC
of the original TNT), a maximum display resolution of 2048x1536 and
an improved rendering pipeline, the TNT2 is a little more than
merely a faster version of the original TNT. It includes support for
hardware bump mapping and motion compensation, as well as AGP 4x, in
anticipation of Intel’s upcoming 440JX (“Camino”) chipset.

Just a final reminder for those of you who missed out on our piece
about out new HTML mailing list that we mentioned the other day. If
you would like to sign up for it, please just check out the following
page for more details.

Microsoft's BackOffice Small Business Server 4.5, which will be
released to manufacturing on March 23, is "rock solid" and
will begin shipping to the reseller channel in April, said sources
briefed on Microsoft's plans. Beta testers received the final beta,
beta 3, approximately two weeks ago. Microsoft released the first beta
version in January.

WindowBlinds 0.80 is set for release on Wednesday, now since it is
still in beta it could be delayed or pushed up. Also, WindowBlinds
0.80 Beta is up for Object
Desktop Network users. I encourage all of you to buy a
subscription, as it is quite a bargain, and the bargain is increasing,
making it more and more useful. We have received the 0.80 beta and
will start our review today, and when we get an new updated build
tomorrow we will yet again update the review, and then post it
tomorrow night.

Also, we have a SimCity 3000 review hopefully tomorrow night as
well. A new poll will be coming up later tonight. If you have any poll
suggestions please email dennis@activewin.com.

WINDOWS Magazine has learned from multiple
sources both inside and outside Microsoft that a target shipping date
for Windows 2000 has finally been set. That date is October 6, just in
time for the Comdex trade show in November. Meanwhile, we’ve also
found out that the company has delayed the release of the planned
Consumer edition of Windows 2000 until at least 2001.

According to sources, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, current beta versions of Windows 2000 (up through build
1984 at this writing) have performed better than expected in both
internal tests at Microsoft and external tests by third
parties--giving managers enough confidence to not only schedule a
release, but also to announce it. The announcement was made in March
at a closed meeting of the Joint Deployment Program (formerly known as
the Rapid Deployment Program, under which selected corporate customers
get early access to Windows 2000 beta code). In addition, we have
learned that at least one outside fulfillment house has been alerted
to expect large orders for pressing CDs in late September and early
October.

Intel demonstrated an 800-MHz Pentium at the CeBit show here
Thursday, offering a glimpse of the high-powered chips it will rely on
in the future to sustain profits as semiconductor prices slide.

The 800-MHz CPU is about 60 percent faster than the new Pentium III
Xeon chip Intel unveiled the day before. The demonstration chip is
"not a product we are going to sell tomorrow but it shows where
we are going," says Pat Gelsinger, general manager of Intel's
desktop products group.

The sanctum has posted their review of the ATI
Rage Fury AGP. Here is a short snippet:

With the
impending release of nVidia's TNT2 videocard and 3dfx's Voodoo3 users
are left with a few choices. Keep in mind that if you purchase the
fury now, you will be getting a card with a not fully matured driver
set. Out of the box you wont have a DVD player either, and will have
to mail the coupon out for one. In time with a few driver releases
ATI's Rage Fury will hopefully mature, so we insist on waiting and
watching. If you really need an AGP videocard and cant wait for TNT2
or Voodoo3 then the Fury might be one of your options, although we
recommend a TNT based card if 3D is your fortay. The OpenGL driver
shipping with nVidia's TNT cards is much better. In closing TheSanctum
gives ATI's Rage Fury AGP videocard a 80%. In its current state we
really cant give it a great buy. If it's drivers were more mature and
a DVD player was packed in box, it would have received a few more
points.

Intel's settlement this week of Federal Trade Commission antitrust
charges won't have any profound or immediate effect on the PC or
workstation arenas, but could presage a subtle shift in the industry's
movement to 64-bit computing.

Members of Congress are pushing new legislation that would
officially bar federal regulators from imposing new charges on
Internet access. The FCC, meanwhile, is working on its defense against
a number of formidable foes.

Real Networks today moved to integrate its streaming media software
with both America Online's instant messaging service and Microsoft's
Internet Explorer browser, and to support an important Web
broadcasting technology.

More than half of all homes in the United States now have at least
one personal computer, a leading market research firm said Thursday,
citing a surge in sales the past two years led by falling prices and
Internet fever.

Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it will offer an update to its
Windows 98 computer-operating system by the fourth quarter in a move
that analysts said buys time for the No. 1 software maker's Windows
2000 system.

Microsoft responded to privacy concerns by posting software patches
on its Web site late Thursday to stop its Office software from
invisibly stamping a hardware identification number in users'
documents.

Not everyone is pleased with the latest browser software rolled out
by Microsoft Corp. The Boston-based Web Standards Project said it
feels Internet Explorer (IE) 5 falls short on standards support, and
in the process, forces Web developers to take extra measures in
designing their content. The standards initiative contends that while
IE 5 makes "marked improvements" compared to the previous
version 4.0 release, the software still falls short of fully
supporting key Web standards. The group asserted that in some
instances the omissions could be considered "significant."

The K6-III may
be great with standard business applications, but when you run the
latest 3D shoot-'em-up, you could be the victim. In our graphics
benchmarks, the K6-III-450 PCs that had been running like Pentium
III-500s couldn't keep up with the average PII-450.

On the
PowerPoint test, our least taxing graphics test, the K6-III systems
came within striking distance of the Pentium IIIs. The CyberMax
K6-III-450, the slowest K6-III-450 in our business application tests,
finished this test in 156 seconds, only 9 seconds behind the average
Pentium III-500 with the same NVidia TNT graphics chip.

The K6-III
systems were significantly slower with our more demanding graphics
tests. For example, in the Redline Racer game test, Compaq's pricey
Presario 5600s-450 ran about 44 percent slower than the average
similarly configured PII-450 PC we've tested. On the same test, the
450-MHz CyberMax Enthusiast fared only slightly better, trailing the
PII-450s by about 30 percent. On the Director test, results were
similarly unimpressive: The top-performing Compaq lagged behind the
PII-450s by 11 percent

Today, I was watching the mail for an IE5 cd I had bought, on
Saturday, I even paid the extra 5 bucks for the Express shipping
method! Angrily, I thought I'd call the MS dept that's controlling
this. I called their shipping phone #, and used their automated
shipping status menu. I was prompted for my order number and it said
"We have found 1 order matching your order number. We are sorry,
we are out of stock on that particular product." Hmm... Out of
stock for the IE5 cds and it just came out yesterday? Sounds like this
is the reason they say "Please wait 8-10 weeks for
delivery."

If you ordered an IE5 cd, please check your email for your email
receipt, and included in that email is the phone number to call
(1-800-485-2048), see if your order was processed.

We will keep you up to date on the IE5 cd problem.

UPDATE: We have received more information, that Microsoft
lost about 10,000 orders for the IE5 cd, please call 1-800-485-2048
with your order number to see what's up with your CD. We just don't
want people waiting for a CD that will never came. I would also like
to remind everyone that I ordered my IE4 cd in August of 97, and got
my IE5 cd at the end of October. So the best thing for you is to keep
up with your order.

Microsoft Corp. yesterday announced its position on scalability and
performance requirements for enterprise directory services. In
conjunction with Compaq Computer Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc.,
Microsoft also released the results of tests that show that the
Microsoft® Active Directory™ directory service of the Windows®
2000 Server operating system will scale and perform to meet the needs
of customers ranging from Internet service providers (ISPs) to the
largest enterprises.

We have finished work on our very own mailing
list setup. You can now subscribe to either a HTML or a regular
plain text version. The HTML mailing list has its very own design and
layout and will be used daily to send out some of our top news, it
will also be used if there is any breaking news we think you would
like to know about.

As we mentioned yesterday, we will keep the Internet
Explorer 5 FAQ up to date throughout the coming weeks. We have
been scouring the IE 5 newsgroups and examining nearly all of your
questions to see which ones are becoming the most asked.

Opera Software has released the latest beta version of its popular
alternative Web browser. Opera 3.60 Beta has been made available for
public download. At the moment, specific changes in this release are
not available -- however I assume it includes additional CSS and Java
support as well as fixes for bugs in 3.51.

We have some more links to the IE5 setup if you are having problems
download it. You can downloading the setup DIRECTLY from WindowsUpdate
here. Or you can download it from one of the many download sites
Microsoft has here.
This is still just the ActiveSetup, and when opened it will download
from one of the download sites.

We don't usually blow our own trumpet, but we did say 3 months ago
that Windows 98 OSR was to go into mainstream retail and we were told
by a number of other sites that we were completely wrong, well Bill
Gates has confirmed it will go on sale for $89, what more can we say.

Microsoft has now officially conceded that there will be another
version of Windows 98, and says that what is likely to be called
Windows 98 Second Edition will ship in late summer or autumn of this
year. The company still hasn't admitted that its plans for a
convergence of code on the NT/Win2k kernel are therefore toast, but
what were you expecting?

Confirmation that Windows 9x lives comes from IE marketing chief
Yusuf Mehdi, who says that the new software will include Internet
Explorer 5.0 (which is released today) and various other technologies,
including Internet Connection Sharing, which will allow multiple
computers to access the Internet over a single line. This is clearly
intended to take xDSL deployment a stage further via a form of home
networking. Microsoft's hit rate when it comes to accurate prediction
of how fast consumer broadband is going to take off has so far been
absolutely diabolical, but maybe this time it will be different.

There is a link with Microsoft Web Accessories, this is referred to
as the IE5 power toy on the internet. This is not true. In fact, that
is just ONE of the may accessories Microsoft has uploaded.

Explorer Bars. This is a new feature that Microsoft has
that will open a left bar, that will display news. There was a MSN
one a few months ago that wasn't very popular.

Microsoft Web Accessories. Dreamed up by our very own
development team, this kit contains eight terrific utilities that
let you zoom in and out on any image, highlight text, do custom
searches, and much, much more.

IE Toolbar Background. Turn the Internet Explorer toolbar
into a work of art! Run the download, close Internet Explorer,
then start it up again. Choose Toolbar Wallpaper from the Tools
menu and pick your wallpaper! This Accessory is in beta and not
supported by Microsoft.

Power Tweaks. his pack of Web Accessories is designed to
make your life easier. It adds an Offline/Online button to your
toolbar that's especially useful for notebook computer users.
Restrictions commands right in the tools menu help you set sites
as trusted or restricted without having to wade through the
control panel to find the controls. Finally, with a right click of
the mouse you can copy and URL right into the clipboard so you can
paste locations in e-mail or any document.

Web Developer Accessories. These two tools help the web
developer or those who are just curious about how pages are coded.
The DOM tree tool lets you view all the Document Object Model
properties in tree form via right click or the tools menu. And for
those who are tired of scrolling through hundreds of lines of HTML
to find that one section of code that does what you want, search
no more! Simply highlight the area of Web page that you want to
see the source for, right click on it and select "View
Partial Source." It's that simple!

Microsoft
has finally updated their Internet Explorer 5 site announcing that IE
5 can now be downloaded across more formats. Whether it is worth your
while trying to download it straight away is up to you, but the sites
will be pretty slow over the next day or so. But some of you may
already have it after we posted the links to the setup files yesterday
;o)

Ever Microsoft found Internet religion in 1995, the Internet
Explorer Web browser was internally thought to be a natural extension
of its dominant Windows operating system franchise.

Now, more than three years after the company transformed itself
seemingly overnight because of the Net, that philosophy is becoming
all but formal doctrine across the sprawling Microsoft campus in
Redmond, Washington. As chairman Bill Gates himself releases the latest
version of Internet Explorer today, it is clear that the browser
has fully been subsumed into a larger Internet strategy, from the
manner in which Microsoft presents information on its Web site to the
alignment of its product teams.

A spokesperson from Microsoft has confirmed that the company has
shipped Windows 2000 Beta 3 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) to testers
today, also implicitly confirming the release schedule reported
earlier in WinInfo. She also commented that the mood at Microsoft was
"upbeat" (meaning that the traditional company party for St.
Patrick's Day is on) and that the final Beta 3 is on track for release
in April as expected.

As many of you probably already know, we have updated the FAQ's
for Internet Explorer 5 final - If you have any questions, check
the FAQ out to see if they have already been answered. We will be
updating the page throughout the week as more questions and answers
arise.

The French government is considering taking action against
Microsoft over the non-Y2K compliance of several products, including
Windows 98. Both 98 and Works 4.5 failed compliance tests carried out
in January, and according to French small and medium business minister
Marylise Lebranchu, possible liability on Microsoft's part is
currently being assessed.

The business
suite of Winstone98 brought out a few surprising results. First, there
is not too much impact of the system bus frequency on the performance
of the AMD K6-III. At 6x 66 MHz, however there is definitely a
performance hit compared to the 4x100 MHz setting (run on the Iwill
XA100 Plus). In addition, the Sharptooth performs significantly better
than the K6-2 or a PentiumII running on the ASUS P2B with otherwise
identical hardware at 3x 140 MHz (timed by WS98 as running at 416
MHz). The most surprising result, however, turned out to be the
performance of the Shuttle HOT 603 reaching the high-score of 30.9
WS98 marks at 75x5.5 (413) Mhz.

In order to
look at impact of the additional L2 cache on the cacheable system RAM
limitation of the chipset, we ran a few test runs on both the FIC PA
2013 and the Shuttle HOT603. Both boards have a cache limitation of
128MB system RAM that, in the case of the Shuttle HOT 603 can be
increased to 256 MB RAM by enabling 3T-write in the BIOS which
switches from WriteBack mode (WB) to WriteThrough (WT) mode. The FIC
PA 2013 was run with 64MB RAM versus 192 MB RAM, whereas the Shuttle
HOT 603 was run in WB mode compared to WT mode.

Regardless what the other sites sites say, IE5 is up and its
available for download. IN FACT, Its available from Windows Update
RIGHT NOW. Go here.
This totally overwrites the other sites' claims. IE5 is out, and you
can download it, al though nothing has been announced, IE5 final being
allowed to be download on a Microsoft web site is good enough for me.
Windows Update also has the IE5 Power Toys "Web Accessories"
check this out as well.

While most IE5 Microsoft download servers don't have the
ie5setup.exe we've found one that does! IE5 Final is now available.
This is yet to be officially released by Microsoft, but its from
MS server so it is the final.

While Microsoft still gets IE5 ready for release, Tucows has posted
it! Tucows has posted the 24 MB version, the activesetup downloads 18
MB, we recommend waiting as this isn't the MS final. This is a
modified version of IE5 final for Tucows, so its not the final thats
on MS's servers, but its the same browser just some Tucows
customizations. If you want the MS official one, wait, and we'll post
the url to it as soon as its available. We will post when MS has
posted their activesetup. If this doesn't install the components you
want or it installs too many, you can add/uninstall them later after
its installed. This has been confirmed FINAL! It is Internet Explorer
5.00.2014.0216.

Update: We've also received word that the IE5 final on
Tucows does NOT have the radio tool bar or FTP functions, we will keep
you posted. Please wait for the IE5 Final from Microsoft.

While most IE5 Microsoft download servers don't have the
ie5setup.exe we've found one that does! IE5 Final is now available.
This is yet to be officially released by Microsoft, but its from
MS server so it is the final.

While Microsoft still gets IE5 ready for release, Tucows has posted
it! Tucows has posted the 24 MB version, the activesetup downloads 18
MB, we recommend waiting as this isn't the MS final. This is a
modified version of IE5 final for Tucows, so its not the final thats
on MS's servers, but its the same browser just some Tucows
customizations. If you want the MS official one, wait, and we'll post
the url to it as soon as its available. We will post when MS has
posted their activesetup. If this doesn't install the components you
want or it installs too many, you can add/uninstall them later after
its installed. This has been confirmed FINAL! It is Internet Explorer
5.00.2014.0216.

Update: We've also received word that the IE5 final on
Tucows does NOT have the radio tool bar or FTP functions, we will keep
you posted. Please wait for the IE5 Final from Microsoft.

Our chat will begin at 6 PM EST, that's 11 PM GMT. We will have
some special guests including someone from Stardock Systems to talk
about WindowBlinds. We will chat from 6 PM to the IE5 Release.
This is one chat you do NOT want to miss!

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, writing in an upcoming book
about the benefits of technology for business, appears to directly
contradict a key witness for his company at its antitrust trial when
he describes how Microsoft tracks important sales figures.

Partners in British-based Symbian, the alliance between the world's
biggest cell-phone manufacturers, said on Wednesday that the Sun
computer language would become part of the standard operating platform
for a new generation of mobile communications devices.

As Windows 2000 enters the last phase of testing, Microsoft is
still hammering out compatibility guidelines for third-party software
applications. The software giant plans to release a series of
application guidelines in conjunction with the release of a final test
version of Windows 2000, the company's bid for a larger chunk of
corporate computing dollars. A third test version, or beta, of the
Windows 2000 upgrade, formerly known as Windows NT 5.0, is due next
month.

Today at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Microsoft Corp.
announced that independent software vendors are embracing the
Microsoft® DirectX® 6.1 set of APIs, a mature and comprehensive set
of system services in the Windows® operating system, making Windows a
preferred platform for game development.

Microsoft Corp. announced today that its Windows® Media
Technologies will be optimized for Intel Corp.'s new Intel Pentium®
III Xeon™ processor, resulting in significant time and cost savings
for content providers and a sharper, smoother visual experience for
end users. Microsoft plans for a future release of Windows Media
Technologies to contain an updated MPEG 4 video codec that is
optimized for the Pentium III Xeon processor.

Could Microsoft's unannounced MS Audio 4.0 be just the tip of a new
end-to-end streaming audio system? Microsoft Corp. is breaking ranks
and creating its own alternative to the MP3 digital music playback and
recording standard, according to vendors and published reports. Microsoft
could announce its MS Audio 4.0 technology as soon as its Windows
Hardware Engineering conference in early April, according to sources.
MS Audio 4.0 could potentially create music files that are about half
the size of MP3 files and with more built-in protection against
illegal downloads, say published reports.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said in an interview the software
company plans to boost the functionality of its Hotmail free email
service, joining the growing trend of putting desktop applications on
the Web.

32BitsOnline.com has
posted an article about the new Palm IIIx and the new Palm V. It
compares and contrasts some of the highs that the Palm V brings, but
also some of it's lows, compared to the IIIx.

No longer is
it a guy thing. Of course, 3Com wouldn't be so politically incorrect
as to say it's targeting women with the Palm V, but I will be. The
Palm V's smooth curves, its slimness and even its shiny new casing
are all geared towards making it aesthetically pleasing, not purely
functional. So much the better to go with those Gucci heels, or that
Channel handbag.
Although the Palm V has technological advances over the Palm IIIx
-consider its long-awaited lithium-ion battery and cradle that acts
as a charger - it has less "power."

Intel boasts that the performance enhancements of the new chip,
which will run at 500 MHz and 550 MHz and contain up to 2MB of
performance-enhancing secondary cache, put it in the same class as
Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) chips, the powerful
processors that run many high-end corporate servers and workstations.
With this chip, Intel and the PC powers aim to take market share from
companies that sell multiprocessor RISC and Unix operating
system-based products, such as Sun Microsystems.

In an effort to make computers and the Internet easier to use for
people with disabilities, Microsoft Corp. today announced a series of
grants to nonprofit research and educational institutions for original
research in the field of PC accessibility. The international grant
program, Exploring PC Accessibility: New Discoveries, was created in
December to complement and extend the work Microsoft and other
software and hardware vendors are doing to make computers easier and
more useful for people with a variety of disabilities.

Microsoft® Publisher, the world's most popular business desktop
publishing program based on the Windows® operating system, continues
to lead its category in high customer satisfaction. A recent study by
Griggs-Anderson Research revealed that Publisher 98 has a 92 percent
customer satisfaction rating. In fact, Publisher has maintained a
rating of 90 percent or higher throughout its past four releases, and
Microsoft has worked closely with customers to help ensure continued
success in the upcoming release of Publisher 2000.

When Microsoft unwraps Internet Explorer 5 Thursday with fanfare
and festivities in Redmond, it will be showing off a browser with some
new ideas on how to present Web content along with one or two others
borrowed from the competition.

A copy of the new browser obtained by CNET News.com includes the
innovations included in the IE 5 public beta, which Microsoft launched
in November. It also comes with a few new bells and whistles first
reported last month, along with a few surprises.

One of the major new features of IE 5 is its "Web
Accessories" initiative. Web Accessories let third-party Web
sites build extensions to the browser interface and serve, or
"push," content to a separate pane no matter where the user
surfs.

Microsoft Corp. today introduced the Windows® 2000 Readiness
Program for Applications and Developers. This program provides
software developers worldwide with the resources they need to ensure
that existing applications will be compatible with the Microsoft®
Windows 2000 operating system and that future versions of applications
will deliver new levels of reliability and manageability for
customers. This program will begin with the beta 3 release of Windows
2000, which is scheduled for April.

Sources close to Intel confirmed today that it will introduce its
433MHz version of the Celeron this coming Monday.

The 466MHz Celeron part is now expected to arrive in June. The
433MHz Celeron will cost around $165 at launch and will come in both
Slot One and socket versions. But our sources tell us that Intel has
now accelerated the death of Slot One Celerons and that by the middle
of the year, only 370-pin Celerons will be available to both OEMs and
the channel.

Microsoft today detailed the latest version of its desktop
publishing software. Priced at $99 as a standalone, Microsoft
Publisher 2000 lets users create marketing and sales materials, like
newsletters, brochures, or Web sites. Publisher 2000 also offers
tighter integration with Microsoft Office that makes the product even
easier to learn and use. Publisher 2000 also provides a publishing
product with print-to-Web design features that makes it a valuable
tool for businesses of all sizes.

Until now, it's been an Internet fact of life: No one roams the Web
for free. But nothing is set in stone online, least of all access
plans and their price tags. And monthly dial-up fees could go the way
of the dot matrix printer if others keep giving away what America
Online -- the world's biggest Internet provider -- is trying to sell.

WindowBlinds 0.70 is available for all Object Desktop Network
Edition Subscribers. You can learn more about OB
here. This is highly recommended, and although its 50 bucks, this
includes WB free, and a LOT more things, including a program similar
to Net.Medic, and a Notepad tool, both of these programs can add up to
over 100 dollars. OB is a sure buy. We will be posting a WindowBlinds
0.80 review next week probably Monday or Tuesday. So get ready for
that. So you know... WindowBlinds 0.70 is incredibly fast and its
definitely foreshadowing that 0.80 will be a great release.
WindowBlinds 0.80 is set for release next week.

After hitting 10,001.78 -- surpassing 10,000 for the first time in
its 114-year history -- the Dow was down 15.54 points at 9943.23 in
mid-afternoon trading. The rest of the market followed the blue-chip
index back to more familiar territory.

That's the debate among moviemakers, distributors, and theater
owners following George Lucas's announcement last week that he would
release an all-digital version of The
Phantom Menace on four screens and shoot Episode 2 of the Star
Wars prequel entirely with digital cameras.

Creative Technology Ltd, and its wholly-owned subsidiary Cambridge
SoundWorks, today announced the shipment of its latest speaker system,
the FourPointSurround(TM) FPS2000 Digital. This incredible new digital
surround sound system is a high-powered, high-output, four-channel
multimedia sub-system that is ideal for the serious gamer. The
FourPointSurround FPS2000 Digital is based on the highly-successful
PCWorks(TM) FourPointSurround that has created a new category of
multi-channel four-speaker system for the true 3D positional audio
experience. The FPS2000 Digital provides significantly more power with
a radically new subwoofer design and more powerful satellites. It
includes a digital input for connecting to the Sound Blaster® Live!
audio accelerator, making it the high-end standard for gaming and PC
audio enthusiasts.

America Online Inc.'s acquisition of Netscape Communications Corp.
is almost a done deal. On Friday, the Justice Department gave the $9
billion deal the green light, and Wednesday, Netscape shareholders are
expected to vote in favor of the merger. So what happens next?
According to analysts, stand by for a flurry of announcements on AOL's
next moves in e-commerce.

That makes the South Korean chipmaker the first company to begin
mass production of the high-capacity DRAM (dynamic random access
memory) chip, Samsung said in a
statement. Samsung plans to produce between 2 million and 3 million
such chips this year, worth a projected $200 million to $300 million
in sales revenue.

Microsoft Corp. today announced it has published the specifications
for a flexible LDAP-based control, called DirSync, for enabling
synchronization of information between heterogeneous directories.
Microsoft published the specification as a nonstandards-track Internet
draft submission to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
Microsoft is making specification freely available, without license,
for use by anyone.

Microsoft Corp. today announced that over 1 million Internet sites
now use the Microsoft® Windows NT® Server operating system as their
Web server platform. This unprecedented momentum is further evidenced
by the results of a new IntelliQuest Inc. report, which found that
Windows NT is the most frequently deployed corporate Internet
platform. Forty percent of all corporations have Windows NT Server
with Internet Information Server (IIS) installed up from 33 percent 9
months ago. Microsoft Windows NT Server with IIS is also the leading
corporate intranet platform for 47 percent of corporate intranets, up
from 41 percent 9 months ago. In addition, Windows NT Server is the
leading e-commerce platform. Netcraft's February 1999 SSL Server
Survey found that Windows NT Server with IIS has 36 percent of all the
third-party-certified SSL Internet sites. SSL technology is used by
e-commerce sites to provide secure transactions.

Microsoft Corp. today announced that the Microsoft® Windows® CE
Toolkit for the Sega Dreamcast home video game system is now available
to licensed Dreamcast developers. The Windows CE Toolkit for Dreamcast
provides a full-featured development environment including optimized
DirectX® libraries for 3-D graphics, sound and input, as well as
built-in communications support designed to provide Internet access
and networked multiplayer gaming. The flexible development environment
of the Windows CE operating system also maximizes programming
productivity by delivering for the first time the benefits of the
Microsoft Visual C++® development system to the world of console
development.

Looks like what we mentioned about 3 months ago is starting to
filter through to everyone else. Here is a snippet from ZDNet:

Microsoft
Corp.'s forthcoming Windows 98 refresh will be more than just a
routine point-release update to the operating system. The Service
Release -- which has evolved into a combination of Microsoft's planned
Windows 98 Service Pack, plus its expected Windows 98 OEM Service
Release -- is now being called Windows 98 Second Edition, sources
said.

Whether Microsoft
will end up selling Windows 98 Second Edition at retail is not
certain, but some OEMs say they expect Microsoft to do so.

Kenwood Technologies announced that it has signed an OEM Agreement
that will enable Compaq Computer Corporation to offer Kenwood's 52X
TrueX CD-ROM drive in their Presario, Prosignia, and Deskpro PC lines.

The 52X TrueX is the world's fastest CD-ROM drive. Unlike so-called
max CD-ROM drives that reach top performance only on the outermost
tracks of the disc, the Kenwood 52X TrueX CD-ROM, based on TrueX
technology from Zen Research, delivers an unprecedented typical
transfer rate ranging from 6750 KB to 7800 KB per second across the
entire disc.

Compaq PCs with Kenwood's 52X TrueX drives will be available on
March 15, 1999. Customers can purchase Compaq computers with Kenwood's
52X TrueX CD-ROM either directly online from the Compaq web site, from
their local Compaq Authorized Reseller, or from their Compaq sales
representative.

A reader who is a chip architect told us today that finding
processor serial numbers (PSNs) on .25 micron Pentium IIs is not
necessarily easy.

He said: "The bus multiplier is in that same PIROM [as the
serial number] and while there is an interface to the PIROM it isn't
accessible without some fancy hardware work. I can confirm your other
source is correct [about processor serial numbers being in .25 micron
PIIs.]"

He added: The serial number and bus multiplier value (among other
things) is written into the PIROM after the chip has been bonded
out/packaged. The testing unit determines what the speed of the
processor is and then writes the serial number information along with
bus multiplier into the PIROM. A simple mistake in the test software
would give the wrong value to the PIROM bit that allows the serial
number to be read by the CPU."

PHEW! That was a long day! We apologize if the site is loading
slow, that's because we have too much news! Hardware, Software,
Business, its all here... Make sure you check out our ActiveIE
section, Byron's been working real hard! Also, just a reminder we will
be uploading an IE5 Review on March 18, so get ready for that!

The download links on the right are updated. You may have to scroll
down a bit.

Also, if there are any WindowBlinds fans out there, the next public
release will be 0.80, and it will be next week! They are really
getting these builds out fast. I received an exclusive copy of
WindowBlinds 0.65, which is the most current release, and we will of
course post an early WB 0.80 review, as soon as we receive it. Also,
you can get early versions of WindowBlinds and a LOT of other products
in Stardock's Object Desktop, its really good, we will have a review
of it soon, but you can see it or buy it if you'd like (which we
recommend) here.

Really, since its just a minute to midnight, its 2 more days till
IE5!! Make sure you check out our ActiveWindows
IE5 Chat!

Chip maker ATI Technologies Inc. is showing off its latest product
which the firm claims will give personal computer (PC) users the
ability to use their machines like a traditional television set and
VCR mix.

Congress is kicking off a new set of hearings this week aimed at
shaking up the Federal Communications Commission, beginning what may
turn into a battle with the White House over scaling back the agency's
powers.

Nullsoft, maker of the de facto standard MP3 player, faces a US$20
million dollar copyright infringement lawsuit. We will be focusing on
this lawsuit in a later poll, so take this chance to read this
article.

In a paper published last week, two cryptographers contend the long
keys used by "strong" encryption programs are easier for
intruders to find, and a new generation of computer virus is tailored
to locate them on hard drives.

The most common technique used to fix computers susceptible to Year
2000 failures is only a short-term remedy, and even advocates of the
method acknowledge it will require other expensive repairs or
replacements within a generation.

A new public-private alliance to curb online crime will teach
children "that hacking is the same as breaking and
entering," Attorney General Janet Reno said Monday.

Educating children about acceptable online behavior is among three
initiatives under the Cybercitizen Partnership, an initiative of
government and the high-tech industry to promote cyberspace ethics and
help law enforcers track down online criminals.

Products are combining features of mobile phones and PCs, making
data connections as commonplace as voice. Some people are so attached
to the Internet that it's difficult for them to leave it behind when
they leave their desks. Soon they may not have to.

A possible alliance between Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp
and U.S. television network NBC could hold major benefits for Sony,
including in its move toward digitally networked home electronics,
analysts said on Monday.

Who's Paul Allen?!? A lot of people don't know this, but Paul Allen
is the co founder of Microsoft, so its not all Bill. In one of the
biggest cash deals in Internet history, the Microsoft co-founder
invests $750M in portal site.

Intel is stepping up its efforts to combat chip
"remarking"--or the practice of fraudulently disguising
slower chips so they can be sold as newer, more expensive
processors--although the changes will make it more difficult for home
users to goose the speeds on their own chips through
"overclocking."

A group of PC and communications heavyweights unveiled new
technologies designed to carry telephony, data, and Internet traffic
for businesses. Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and Nortel
Networks, announced the new platform initiative today at the
Technology Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California.

From the beginning, the Internet has been touted as the first truly
global communications platform. Mostly, that's been hype. Throughout
the 1990s, the bulk of the Net's growth has taken place in the U.S.
The unabashedly American character of Web content is impossible to
overlook.

Microsoft has sent out the latest beta version of Office 2000 to
technical testers, the company confirmed today. Office 2000, Microsoft's
next generation of office suite applications, has been beset by
delays, which have cost the company in this quarter's earnings. (See
related story.)

But beta testers are reporting that the first Release Candidate of
the much-anticipated software has been released. Release Candidates
are issued to testers after most bugs have been reported and fixed,
and are close to the final version of the product. There are typically
only a few Release Candidates before the final product is introduced.

Microsoft is on track to release Office 2000 in the first fiscal
quarter of this year, said John Duncan, a product manager with
Microsoft. The Release Candidate was sent out to a "few
thousand" testers, he said.

Microsoft has released a patch for a Windows NT bug that allows
users to gain access to privileged files by exploiting a flaw in the
screensaver. Microsoft issued
a security bulletin to its users on Friday night and made the patch
available on its Web site.

The Windows NT screensaver matches the security level of the user
logged onto the machine, Microsoft explained, but does not check to
make sure that the match is accurate. Theoretically, a malicious
screensaver file could allow any user to log on as an administrator.

For the fourth consecutive season, NVIDIA(TM) Corporation,
announced today the RIVA TNT2(TM) 3D processor, the fastest 3D
graphics processor for the mainstream market.

This new offering from NVIDIA sets a new standard for performance
and quality by combining best-of-class 3D and 2D performance with
32-bit true color rendering, 32-bit Z-buffer and a 32MB frame buffer.
The TwiN Texel Architecture with per-pixel mip-mapping precision
combined with the TNT2's unprecedented fill rate of up to 350 million
pixels-per-second, which is twice the nearest competitor. The RIVA
TNT2 also has the ability to render up to 10 million triangles per
second, allows developers to write standards based applications with
stunning visual effects.

Netscape Communications Corp.'s lead engineer says the company is
working on a fast new layout and rendering engine that will keep the
next version of its Web browser "ahead of the game."

The layout engine, named Gecko, is at the core of Navigator 5.0,
and Netscape Director of Engineering Rick Gessner said it will be the
fastest, smallest and most standards-compliant layout engine available
-- features that Netscape hopes will help it win its bloody browser
war with rival Microsoft Corp.

To take advantage of this fast-growing duplication among the 5.5
million professional developers internationally, Microsoft is
combining its resources for MSDN and the Site Builder Network under
the MSDN brand. As part of this marriage, the MSDN Online and SBN Web
sites and online membership programs will be merged into a single,
comprehensive, one-stop source of information and tools for
developers. The newly redesigned MSDN Online officially launches March
29.

Microsoft Corp. today announced important research from Northeast
Consulting Resources Inc. (NCRI) that found Microsoft® Windows NT®
Server 4.0 and Systems Management Server address customers' needs
better than Novell's management solution. Based on a head-to-head
comparison of Microsoft and Novell management solutions, NCRI found
that Windows NT Server 4.0 with Systems Management Server provides the
more scalable way to reduce the costs of change and configuration
management for desktop and server systems based on the Windows®
operating system. The December 1998-January 1999 study concluded that
Systems Management Server offers enterprise customers an average
annual cost savings of $1,200 per desktop and an average investment
return rate of 315 percent over five years.

For those of you who have joined us from ActiveIE, we have decided
to post some of the new Internet Explorer section up on the website
before we fully launch it on March 18th. You can get to all new
sections by either clicking the links in the left hand frame (If you
use frames) or by clicking here.

Microsoft will release its own alternative to the MP3 digital music
format next month. The new format, MS Audio 4.0, is believed to offer
better sound quality than MP3's near-CD reproduction and twice the
MPEG-based format's level of compression. According to sources cited
by MP3 distributor MP3.com, Microsoft's entry into the downloadable
music business will contain the anti-piracy features that MP3 is
usually criticized for lacking.

The MS Office Linux port story our good friends at ZD floated last
week might seem like pretty desperate stuff, but if you think about
it, it's possible - at least in some parallel universe. And the
obstacles are probably more political than technical.

If you focus on the way Microsoft develops for Windows you see
little but obstacles to a Linux port of Office. Office for Windows is
deeply entangled in the operating system, so shifting it to another
operating system would be tricky and expensive. Microsoft's internal
development resources are meanwhile at full stretch (even more so than
usual, given the amount the company currently has on its plate), and
that makes the port even less plausible.

Netscape Communications Corp.'s lead engineer says the company is
working on a fast new layout and rendering engine that will keep the
next version of its Web browser "ahead of the game."

The layout engine, named Gecko, is at the core of Navigator 5.0,
and Netscape Director of Engineering Rick Gessner said it will be the
fastest, smallest and most standards-compliant layout engine available
-- features that Netscape
hopes will help it win its bloody browser war with rival Microsoft
Corp.

Currently at Version 4.51, Netscape said Navigator 5 is scheduled
for a beta release by July and commercial Mac and Windows versions by
year-end.

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ActiveWindows is an independent site. The information and sources here are
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